Monthly Archives: November 2013

I’m not really a poet, but every once in a while inspiration strikes in a rare form. I found this poem I wrote years ago. I started writing it in my mind as I was walking alone down a Midwestern country road with my eyes turned to the vast sky above me.

Dedicate to God the majesty of the sky.
Praise him with ocean‑wide adoration.

The Lord’s fragrance stirs the leaves,
Touches a cheek like fingers from the sky.
A shaft of sunlight reaches,
Settles in a pool of warmed grass.
Bathe in the heat of it, face uplifted.

A scudding of clouds frames the heavens,
The splayed lace of a tumbled surf
Tossed upon blue coral boulders.
With pure white radiance
Or as purple dusk‑formed silhouettes,
The spun sugar hovers across the sky.

A disappearing trace of lightening
Explodes soundlessly on a distant horizon.
Yet above, mother moon nestles
Among a spray of star children
Flung across the night sky.

Dr. Charles Levine despises his younger half-brother with a hate that even death can’t destroy. So why should he let Gordon’s demise prevent him from exacting revenge? His weak-minded nephew, who resembles his father in so many ways, would serve Charles’ purpose perfectly.

With romance, suspense, and a touch of madness, Chasing Nightmares tells the tale of Anne and Lee as they struggle to conquer the terrors that have haunted their dreams since childhood. Terrors that Charles exploits with finesse and specially concocted pharmaceuticals.

Will Anne’s nyctophobia keep her from saving herself and Lee from the Doctor’s insane plans? Can Lee escape the yoke of addiction his uncle keeps pressing upon him? Or will their nightmares become their reality and devour them in the darkness?

“A very Edgar Allen-like type of story: creepy with a touch of madness.”

Don’t you love looking through old photographs? Especially ones of family and friends back before you knew them or were born. It’s like the spirit of the people they were then are still around, and always will be.

The above is one of my favorite pictures of my dad. He would have been 18-years-old when this was taken and his sense of humor shows through his smiling, handsome face.

I have a reprint of a book published in 1859 called The Young Housekeepers Friend. It is fascinating. In addition to recipes like the one below, it talks about how to wash your clothes (in a pot outdoors) and how to manage your servants.

If you think baking bread from scratch is too much work, how would you like to have to make your own yeast first. The book provides recipes for three different kinds: dry yeast, soft hop yeast and potato yeast. Potato yeast, it recommends, should be made once a week in the summer and once every two weeks in the winter.

Boil one handful of hops in two quarts of water half an hour. Strain it and return the tea to the kettle. Have ready grated eight large potatoes, or nine small ones; which stir into the tea.

Let it boil a minute or two and it will thicken to a batter. When nearly cold, add half a pint of good yeast. let it ferment well then put into a jar and cover close. Always shake or stir before using it.

Use a porcelain kettle for making this yeast, or an iron one tinned inside. A common iron one will turn dark.

You might think, since so far the only recipes I’ve posted here are from other blogs, that I have no recipes of my own. The answer is “No, I don’t.” But how many of us have recipes that we created ourselves? Does that make them any less homemade?

The closest thing I do have to an original recipe is one for an egg-less chocolate cake written in my grandmother’s hand in a cookbook I inherited from her. She calls it: